Hempstead Webs

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Hemp History
For a summary of hemp’s ancient history and many uses, as well as a well-researched look into the deliberate effort to eradicate and de-legitimize the hemp industry by oil, plastics and pharmaceutical corporations, please see:http://www.sdearthtimes.com/et0199/et0199s11.html

Current News and Information
For news information on the hemp industry, see:
www.hempnews.tv – breaking news on hemp
HempReport.com – The Hemp Report Online Trade Journal (subscriptions are free)
http://hemp-resource.com – An excellent blog aimed at demonstrating the goodness of hemp
www.naihc.org – the North American Industrial Hemp Council web site
www.hemptech.com— a worldwide network of communications and hemp professionals working to reintroduce industrial hemp into our economy
www.votehemp.org a national, nonprofit dedicated to changes in current law to allow U.S. farmers to grow industrial hemp
www.crrh.org/hempnews/

Industrial Uses and Benefits
The hemp plant has more than 25,000 documented uses, from food to fuel. Industrial hemp is a wild perennial crop that does not need pesticides, herbicides or chemical fertilizers to grow. Unlike any other plant, every single part of the hemp plant can be used for making sustainable products that contribute to the health of the planet and human beings. In the links below, you can learn more about the existing and potential uses of hemp, and its tremendous benefits for all life.

Watch the USA Hemp Museum’s more than 85 videos on this youtube station, recommended by Willie Nelson, to learn more about hemp’s many uses:
www.youtube.com/user/cureworks

These 7 states include: California, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Vermont and Virginia.

Here’s a few profiles of local and state work underway to legalize and develop a hemp economy:

North Dakota

Laws and Resolutions Authorizing Hemp Research

Year Passed: 1997Summary: The North Dakota Legislature approved House Bill 1305 “to provide for a study of industrial hemp production by the [state] agricultural experimental station.” The study was completed in 2008, and set the stage for state legislation authorizing industrial hemp farming.

Laws Authorizing Commercial Hemp Cultivation

Year Passed: 1999Summary: The North Dakota Legislature approved a bill recognizing industrial hemp having no more than 0.3 percent THC as an “oilseed.” This legislation also establishes licensing procedures to allow local farmers to grow hemp commercially.

Current Efforts

Bills and concurrent resolutions over the past decade have urged Congress to facilitate the growing of industrial hemp and to direct the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to differentiate between industrial hemp and marijuana. Farmers and state legislators are continuing this work, filing a federal lawsuit, Monson v. DEA, in an effort to end the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s criminalization of commercial hemp farming. If The lawsuit sought to ensure that licensed hemp farmers would not be held criminally liable under the Controlled Substances Act. A District Judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2007, but the farmers have persisted and filed an appeal just this year.

Year Passed: 2001Summary: The Montana Legislature approved a bill recognizing industrial hemp having no more than 0.3 percent THC as an “agricultural crop.” This legislation also establishes licensing procedures to allow local farmers to grow hemp commercially. An amendment to the bill requests the federal government to issue a “waiver that will allow this act to be effective without federal preemption.”

Current Efforts

The Montana Hemp Council was formed in 2005 to inform state residents about the benefits of hemp and advocate for policy ending the prohibition of industrial hemp cultivation. The organization was instrumental in securing the 2009 Resolution listed above. They are working with farmers in North Dakota and Lakota Hemp in South Dakota in a regional effort to restore hemp.

Summary: A memorial requesting the New Mexico Department of Agriculture to investigate the feasibility of state incentives for commercialization of industrial hemp and that Congress be requested to acknowledge the difference between marijuana and industrial hemp and to clearly legalize the commercial production of industrial hemp.Year Passed: 2007Summary: The law requests the New Mexico State University Board of Regents to study the viability of industrial hemp farming in the state, and urges Congress “to recognize industrial hemp as a valuable agricultural commodity, to define industrial hemp in federal law as a non-psychoactive and genetically identifiable species of the genus Cannabis, and acknowledge that allowing and encouraging farmers to produce industrial hemp will improve the balance of trade by promoting domestic sources of industrial hemp and can make a positive contribution to the issues of global climate change and carbon sequestration.”

Current Efforts:

The Rocky Montain Farmers Union, representing New Mexico, along with Colorado and Wyomiing, has a long-standing pro-hemp policy and is active across the state’s farming and ranching sector in advocating for industrial hemp.